


you stole my strength away

by myladybrienne



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fix-It, Not Betaed, Post-Canon, Slow Burn, TW: suicidal thoughts, im not kidding i mean Slow Burn, just trust me, tw: Mentions of Suicide, tw: depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-05 07:17:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 22,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19043767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myladybrienne/pseuds/myladybrienne
Summary: brienne is sent back to tarth by her king for reasons unbeknownst to her, she's surprised at what she finds./// idk where this is going but i wanted to write an extended semi-plausible fix it.





	1. Chapter 1

The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had forgotten the thrill of real combat.

She kept a sword at her hip for appearance’s sake but not a drop of blood had been spilled in the city since the Essosi armies left and the reign of Bran the Broken began. The stray mutts that roamed the city’s streets were the fiercest competition she was likely to find. Only whores and maidens bled in this new age of peace…where all the men worthy of bleeding were already dead.  
  
“Ser Brienne, I must set you a rather tiresome task,” announced King Bran.

Brienne had not heard him approach. His chair was pushed by wiry, sweet Meera Reed. The girl was so light of foot, it was reminiscent almost of the King’s youngest sister. She wondered after the slightest of the Starks sometimes, sailed far beyond the reach of her protection now.  
  
“Your Grace,” she offered, bowing slightly. “Whatever you require of me, I will see it done.”

 She wondered what he would ask of her. His requests were simple and easy and seldom demanding of effort, yet his eyes carried the familiar sense of heaviness they often did when he’d been _away._  
  
The Reed girl backed away down the stone hall. The footsteps were absent against the vast slabs of the ground, so silent that Brienne wondered at the girl. The ghosts were gone, or so they all believed and yet remnants of the North’s dead houses lingered in the Red Keep’s great halls.

“It’s time to go home,” began King Bran. “Tarth is where you must go now, for a time, and then you might return.” 

After the years away, she barely thought of the Sapphire Isle. Her memories of it had faded to insignificance and only in her dreams could she conjure a convincing image of her home. _Those beaches,_ she thought, _they’re a wasteland to me now._  
  
Word that her father and his men had endured the siege of the Golden Company. Summoned to the battle of King’s Landing, they abandoned the remaining locals to starve and sailed for the mainland. Still, Tarth endured. _Venerable as our vow._ The words of her house, asking nothing more of the Gods than the right to prove themselves.  
  
“Why, your Grace?” she asked.

“Tomorrow’s secrets cannot sail today. You must go, and the truth will be there to meet you as a father meets a son come home as a stranger and a hero alike. The tides will deliver your answers,” he spoke ominously, as he always did. “If not for that, then because your King commands it.”  
  
It was Ser Podrick Payne who would take command of the Kingsguard while she was gone. Part of her wanted to argue he was unfit for the position, inexperienced beyond belief and incapable of protecting the King from danger. It would be a lie, of course. She’d trained him well and she knew he could fight better than almost all of them. Still, she was reluctant to leave the city in his young hands. Times of peace were sweet and felt like summer, but they were brittle as the underbrush of winter’s frosted forests and they needed to be preserved. Tarth felt half a world away, she could do nothing at all to help from so far afield.  
  
“As you command it, your Grace,” she answered dutifully. “I will leave at dawn, if it please you.”

It didn’t take her long to pack what she needed and find passage from Griffin’s Roost across Shipbreaker Bay. The winter hadn’t thawed entirely just yet and it was the safest route to travel, though it added to the time she would be away. Still, Bran had bid her to pack for a long journey and she took that to mean this was no fleeting visit.  
  
With her, came a green boy of a squire that fumbled with her armour hopelessly, and Ser Davos, who had reason to travel to the coast in search of Essosi vessels that might be interested in heading for the capital in wont of better trade.  
  
The journey was tiresome and with every step that her palfrey made east, she longed more hopelessly to ride back west and return to her chambers in the Red Keep, to the home she had built herself there. There was little in the way of company and that made the days of riding all the longer in her mind; travelling alone was one thing but the sluggish presence of others at her tail left her in wont of the banterous and everpresent reminder that she wasn’t alone, the kind of reminder she associated with one she’d never travel beside again.

Green graced the vast expanses ahead of them. Somewhere amongst the snow of the winter and the stone walls of the city, she’d forgotten just how brilliant that looked. Horses could graze freely and water could be gathered at a river’s edge, travel was easier than she ever recalled it being. 

The gentle breeze rustled through the leaves of the woods and pressed encouragingly at their backs, until they found the coast and took the first vessel they saw to the still icy waters. Yet, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard belonged at the side of the King, and here she was traipsing halfway across the realm on some fool’s errand.  
  
_Not a fool,_ she reminded herself, _her King._  
  



	2. Chapter 2

_Father,_ she thought, the moment their ship dropped its anchor on the barren shores of Tarth.

The Evenstar had survived the siege of Evenfall, and his closest men endured it with him. The men, women, and children they had lost were far from unimportant, but nameless casualties in the greatest war the world had seen were expected, to say the least. _He will be grieving for his people, though. He was ever a kind leader._  
  
It was almost night when they got up to the city, servants of the castle had been sent to help them make the last leg of their journey but there was no formal reception. Keeping up appearances was something of the past, something they no longer bothered themselves with so far from court. Instead, she rode up to the castle on a mule and braced herself for the way her father was bound to chastise her: she had brought honour to the family name, of course, but she could’ve gone about it far more carefully.  
  
“My darling girl!” The voice burst from the shadows with a refreshing warmth that set the blood in her travel-wearied veins back to flowing and she could feel the colour rise in her cheeks. “How have you been this past years?”   
  
Selwyn Tarth was older than she remembered. The remnants of blonde in his hair had lost their battle with the grey, and his bright, blue eyes looked weary with age. He wore no beard and it only went to show the tired way his skin hung from his jaw like that of a turkey. _I was away too long, the years have harried him._  
  
Brienne blinked back the tears that made her gaze blur and offered a watery smile to her father. His arms opened to her and drew her into a bear’s embrace. For the first time since she’d set sail for Storm’s End so many moons ago, she felt truly safe in the hold of another. _Not the first time,_ a voice whispered though she shook it off. _I’m home, at last._  
  
“It is good to see you, Father,” she whispered, breathing in the scent of pine that ever lingered in the stitching of his garb. “Tarth is more beautiful than my memory might have let me believe.”   
  
“As are you, my dear girl, as are you,” Lord Selwyn replied croakily. “Knighthood becomes you. You return to me in finery I might never have imagined for the girl I watched sail off with childish dreams of chivalry. I bid farewell to a child and she comes home a woman grown.”    
  
Tommen Redwyne stumbled over his own feet at her side and she wondered how such a boy had found himself a place at court, though it cast her mind to how Pod had entered her service and she bit back a laugh. _Father thinks me a woman, with a squire and a helm._  
  
“Might we go inside, Father? The breeze chills me and I haven’t eaten since I broke my fast at dawn,” she admitted, fighting the shiver that threatened her shoulder blades. In a moon or two, the isle would be back to its temperate nature under the warm gaze of the summer sun but for now, winter lingered at evenfall still.   
  
“Of course, though I must warn you, we are in company this night. I might have rescheduled had I been better informed of when you might arrive.” _Who would be visiting her Lord Father so near to the war’s end?_ she wondered.    
  
“Certainly,” she answered as they made their way inside and headed straight for the westernmost hall.   
  
Evenfall Hall had seldom changed. Its walls stood strong and within them were the same furnishings that had been there when she left. Her father wasn’t one for fashions and so little had changed since he inherited the lands and title under King Jaeharys. It worked well enough, and she had never longed for prettiness and elegance as a girl, and when they had guests – a rare enough occurrence – her father was no stranger to entertaining.   
  
Her mind lingered evermore on their company, no Lord or Lady fit to travel was anywhere aside from the capital, hoping to pledge themselves to their new King. _I ought to be wearing a gown,_ she thought. _They still think I’m the Maid of Tarth here, no matter how far from the truth they are._  

The westernmost hall was a modest room, though charming. The fireplace burned strong and cast its hot gaze out across the stone floor. It was a somewhat personal place, reserved only for the family and her father’s closest friends, and that confused her all the more as she stepped inside to see an unfamiliar man stood in the dancing shadows of the flames.   
  
For a moment, he almost looked like Jaime. _Don’t be ridiculous,_ she told herself. _He’s dead. Not that I care. He’s resting in the seventh hell with his beloved sister._  
  
“Ser Brienne,” the voice came, and it struck through her painfully. “I hope your journey was pleasant.”  
  
Brienne looked to her father in confusion. Tears burned against her eyes as she bit the inside of her cheek for wont of yelling out in confusion, or anger, or pure rage. Lord Selwyn dropped his gaze to the stone slabs and kept quiet. 

Two short steps, laboured though they were, brought him into her view and her heart rose to her throat as though it was being torn out by Ser Gregor Clegane himself. She took stock of him as if to prove to herself she was wrong.

Silvering hair and beard grown wild. Tired eyes, and green as a boy of two-and-ten. Thick brown wool from head to toe. Only an empty sleeve where his right hand ought to have hung. _But he’s dead. Tyrion saw his body and set the Silent Sisters to carrying the twin lions back to Casterly Rock. He was crushed under a thousand fallen stones right next to her. He was dead.  
_

His head was misshapen with bumps and every inch of him was coated in a thin layer of purple bruising, but he was standing upright and smiling nervously as though she might kill him if he let slip how happy he was. The brave lion she had known before was gone, here stood the bones of a broken man and she wondered how he remained upright.   
  
“He’s a baseborn son of Walder Frey and he’s wonting for a new life away from all that bloodshed. He’s been squiring for me, but if you have a mind to put him to better use, I won’t object,” declared her father.   
  
Sapphire eyes met in a silent combat as she understood what he was saying. He was hidden here. He was no guest: they were harbouring an outlaw. The servants were listening. They were loyal as any sandpiper but only to their own. As Septa Roelle used to say: “strangers in birds’ nests are not welcome guests”.   
  
“I will take him for a training partner, if he’s to protect my Lord Father, I’d best make sure he’s worth his salt,” she declared boldly. “Why don’t we eat now?”   
  
The table was laden with bread and cheese and fruit enough to feed her for a week. When the dishes had been served, Lord Selwyn dismissed all of the servants for the night and said it could be cleared in the morning. Once the door was closed behind the last of the serving girls, Brienne’s anger seemed to spill open like a dam.   
  
“How dare you?” she snapped furiously at the pair of men, not sure which angered her more. “I come home to find a ghost is joining us for supper, a dead man and by his own doing. You are not welcome here and I don’t know who let you think you were. I want you gone.”   
  
Selwyn Tarth watched as his daughter stormed away, a half-eaten bread roll still in her hand. His eyes followed her to the door, watching the way she hurried as her mother would from conflict with the ones she loved. A sword was an answer to conflict, so what was she to do with those she despised but did not want dead?


	3. Chapter 3

For days, Brienne refused to leave her chambers. Her meals were delivered to her and the only guest she would receive was her father though he was met with a coldness that he had never seen in her before. She felt betrayed.   
  
“Has he gone?” she demanded one morning when it was clear that the sight of the four same walls were sending her to madness.   
  
“No, my darling, and he isn’t. I swore an oath that I would keep him safe from harm, and the only reason I might break that is if I believed you were at risk,” he answered dutifully.   
  
_At risk of what?_ Brienne wondered at what she might have to do to get rid of him. _He already took my maidenhead._ Her father might kill him for that, and she wouldn’t have his blood on her hands, not after spending so long keeping the fool alive.   
  
“Why would you make an oath like that to a Lannister?” Her voice broke on the last word and she barely more than squeaked it out.   
  
“A Lannister saved my only daughter from ruin once, if you recall. 300 golden dragons for the safe return of my darling girl to me, and I’ve been informed there was a Lannister hand somewhere in that deal that I never bargained for.”   
  
Her chambers seemed small now. She had continued to grow since she left Tarth and now, she felt as though she were a woman in the rooms of a girl. Sapphire blue silks dressed the walls and she wondered if her father had changed a single thing since she had left. It was exactly as she remembered it, the same oak furnishings, and the same unworn gowns in the armoire. It felt like she was suffocating in a past that she barely remembered.   
  
“You know what he did, Papa,” she spoke softly, using that name like a chess piece in this game of manipulation. “The reason they all want him dead. He’s a traitor. He doesn’t _deserve_ your protection.”   
  
Brienne’s throat went dry. _Traitor_ sat uncomfortably in her mouth and yet, it was the truth. He’d tried to be better, and he’d failed. His loyalties would move with the winds and she wondered if he really believed they would last each time he changed his mind.

“There’s another truth, we both know that,” Lord Selwyn reasoned. “No two men tell a tale the same way, _remember that._ I’ve heard no different from him. He won’t say a word he’s not ordered to, not to me.”  
  
“Me?” Brienne balked.  “You think he’ll tell me the truth when he won’t say an honest word to the man who took him in and harboured him all these weeks?”   
  
Selwyn fell onto the bed beside her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders awkwardly. His daughter had grown ever taller and old age had shrivelled him like a prune. Still, she leaned into his embrace and tried to make herself smaller against all odds. _I want to be a little girl again,_ she pleaded to the Gods: _Maiden, return me to innocence. Mother, shield me from the truths I have known._  
  
“You must try, you told me of the loss you felt for this man once. Not long ago,” Selwyn reminded, and she begrudged herself that letter. “No matter his crimes, he kept you alive all this time and I owe him a debt for that, even if you don’t.”   
  
Steeling herself against the hurt she knew it would bring her, Brienne donned her armour before she braved the hallways of her unfamiliar home. Her father had bid her to try, and she had already failed him a half a hundred ways. _I can do this for him,_ she told herself.  
  
He was in the training yard with Widow’s Wail at his belt. The northern armour he still wore was scratched and battered much as he remained, she wondered why he had not died the Golden Lion that had fled back to his den.   
  
“You won’t kill a man with your blade sheathed,” she announced and any other day, he might’ve laughed or bitten back with some retort; his silence ached. “We’re not training today. I’m to show you the castle in better detail, so you might better learn to defend it.”   
  
Wordlessly, he nodded at her and made in her general direction. They started at a brisk pace around the castle grounds with Brienne speaking mindlessly about the different things he needed to know if he was going to serve her father and he was yet to say a word.

“Come, curse me or kiss me or call me a liar. _Something._ ” She quoted back at him as if it had been only yesterday. “Say something, Ser Jaime, your liege lady commands it of you!”   
  
“I am sworn to your father, my lady, not you,” he mumbled abashedly.  
  
Embarrassment spread across her skin in crimson like a rash. He hadn’t called her that in almost a year, he knew how she had hated it. He wasn’t teasing, nor was he trying to be cruel, it was an instinct of the duty that held this broken version of himself together.  
  
“Jaime bloody Lannister, speak to me. Being mad at you is far more exhausting when its one-sided,” she complained as she stood amongst the heavy branches of the oak trees that lined the south wall of Evenfall, looking almost golden in the sunlight. 

“Don’t call me that,” he pleaded weakly. “I don’t know who I am anymore but I’m not that man. I can’t be.”

The next he knew, there were tears on his cheeks and his legs were shaking desperately beneath the weight of him. He caught himself against the wall before he dropped to the stone floor with a slight thump. Brienne watched the way he hugged his knees and curled into himself hopelessly. The floor was dusty, but her armour had kept her safe from more than dust, she dropped to the floor as gracefully as she could manage in such heavy mail and met his shy gaze.

“How did you get here? My father never explained,” she wondered aloud. The details had been plaguing her thoughts every moment since she’d learned of his godsforsaken survival. “Please.”  
  
“I survived, somehow. Skin of my teeth apparently. Tyrion found me in the rubble, counted me for dead but I wasn’t. I couldn’t stay in the city, he knew that, and the Dragon Queen wanted me dead, so he found Bronn in all of the chaos and ordered him to get me as far away as possible, promised him a spot on the small council to sweeten the deal. He sent a raven ahead of us, but everything depended on the kindness of your father, he believed he could count on that after everything we’d been through.”   
  
The look on his face was unadulterated anguish. Brienne had seen that look before. In the baths at Harrenhal, and on the courtyard at Winterfell, and now, here he was, trying to explain himself under her very own roof.   
  
“I didn’t care what happened to me. I wanted to be dead from the moment he roused me. I prayed to the Seven that I’d die of infection or that our boat would capsize on the way here, I begged the Stranger to take me in the night, or for the Lord of Light to send one of his servants to finish me. I didn’t care, I didn’t _want_ to survive. The man you knew is dead, I killed him in the tunnels under the Red Keep and I’m nothing but his ghost. Your father didn’t want to take me, but Bronn made a convincing case and said that _you,_ of all people, would be unhappy if your lord father let me die.”   
  
Jaime’s eyes had settled on her big freckled hands as they rested on her knees. _I could strangle him right here and now,_ she thought. _But he had guest right and she wouldn’t tarnish her honour for the likes of him again._  
  
“You can’t die,” she told him again. “I know you want to. I wanted to as well but we’re knights: what we want doesn’t matter. The Gods haven’t seen fit to kill you yet, so stop doing such a foul job of living.”  
  
A rain started to fall. It was barely more than mist but it was reason enough to make their way inside.

Brienne turned to start walking and when Jaime’s hand fell upon her forearm, she yanked it away and glared at him with hostility.

“It almost sounded as though you wanted me to live,” he admitted placidly with no intonation at all. _I still despise you,_ Brienne thought.


	4. Chapter 4

A serving girl had been heard spreading rumours about the new squire in the halls. News had gotten back to Lord Selwyn, and he had delivered it promptly to his daughter. The word was out.   
  
With Daenerys dead, and Arya Stark well on her way to a suicide mission at sea, the greatest threats to the Kingslayer’s life were gone, and yet his survival was like to displease many highborn lords and ladies.

“We must quash these rumours, the tale you have told is true enough. The Kingslayer was not the only man to lose an appendage to Vargo Hoat. They are gossiping for gossip’s sake, Father. This island can be a bore, especially to a young girl like that and she is speaking of things she doesn’t know. A quiet word will be more than enough to silence her, I’m sure.”   
  
This cruel logic of Brienne’s was borne of war. Whether she had learnt it from Lady Sansa, or from fighting Queen Cersei, she was unsure but it had burrowed its way into her mind and now it was simply a part of how she thought. _Little birds sing, but they can be silenced with far less than an arrow,_ Lord Tyrion had told her once.

“We must warn our ward of these rumours, nevertheless. He ought take extra care in how he speaks around the servants,” Lord Selwyn remarked, brushing his thumb over the hilt of Oathkeeper curiously. “A Lannister sword? We really do owe the man a debt, it seems.” 

“That sword paid a debt of its own, don’t worry yourself.”

For weeks now, her father had been trying to draw the fine details of her relationship with the Kingslayer from her, and for weeks, she had resisted him. Nobody needed to know the truth of their past, least of all her dear father who was so sickly now.   
  
Brienne allowed Tommen to suit her and headed toward the yard to train. There was little use in trying to spar with such a damaged man. If it weren’t for the broken bones and the torn cords of muscle over every inch of his skin, there was still the part of him that longed for her to strike him down to contend with.

“Tarth’s little birds are starting to sing,” she told him when they stopped to drink. “Their master is dead, they twitter away to anyone who will listen and you ought to stop giving them new songs.”  
  
He wondered what it would mean, if he was discovered. King Bran would not kill him, he had told him that there was a role left to play and his uselessness in the battle certainly didn’t tie up any loose ends. Sansa Stark likely wanted him dead but Winterfell was a long ride from Tarth and she wasn’t one driven by vengeance. Would it make any difference at all?

“You’re the only sword I know who truly wants to kill me,” he reasoned, popping the cork into his skin. “Let them sing all they like, nobody cares about the Kingslayer.”  
  
“You think Lord Tyrion sent you here because he suspected you’d enjoy the climate? There are plenty want you dead, plenty who remain loyal to one queen or the other, and they _all_ of them judge you a traitor.”   
  
Brienne thought on that. What was he really loyal to now? Cersei was dead. Tyrion had banished him. The lout had abandoned her long ago. _Is there anything in this world he respects?_ She wondered if he might ever be himself again, either the version she’d despised or the one’s she’d come to care for.   
  
They sparred every day for hours until the sun went down, and they were both of them too tired to go on any longer. Sparring was easier than speaking. They could continue to hate each other, and it only added to the experience.   
  
“If you want me gone so desperately, why not tell your father the truth of Winterfell?” he asked her one day as she parried, and the words almost sent her stumbling over her own feet. “He’d kill the man who stole his daughter’s maidenhead or banish me at the least.”   
  
 A harsh blow bit against the steel of his sword and he wondered at the fact she didn’t run him straight through for mentioning it.   
  
“I would never hold that against you. I’m an adult, and I was willing. I would never try and use that against you now,” she bit out through heavy breaths.   
  
“Always too honourable for your own good,” he grunted as he hooked her ankle and knocked her to the ground. His blade pressed lightly against her throat and he stood there with a smug grimace until she offered a resentful yield and mumbled something about cheating. “I’ve never apologised for that, but I will now.”

The courtyard was empty aside from the two of them. She looked around her to make sure they were alone before she shoved the hilt of her sword against his chest and watched him stagger backwards at the unexpected impact.

“Don’t you dare,” she ground out. “Apologise for betraying us all, for deserting us all, for being too weak to stay away from her, but don’t you dare apologise for that. I won’t let you.”   
  
Apologising to Brienne had never gone well for him and perhaps, Jaime would finally get the message that it was never a good idea. She wasn’t the sort to forgive on the basis of words, acts were more her field of expertise.

“I’m sorry for the rest of it, if you don’t know that then I must be doing a dreadful job of grovelling.” His gut still ached, and he knew that his weakened form couldn’t afford to take a blow like that, but he refused to complain. He deserved it.   
  
“We’re done for the day, you’re in no form to fight me,” she declared and asked him to join her in the library, “I still don’t understand it.”   
  
As they walked through the halls, his gaze rested on her back as he pondered how he might ever explain it to her. If he had the nerve, if she would even listen for long enough. It would take a lot of wine, far more than she’d ever permit him to. 

 _One day,_ she told herself, _he’ll tell me, and I’ll let go of this lingering sorrow I have for him._  
  
 “Another time, I’m going to need half the Arbor’s cellars to get me through that conversation,” he admitted ruefully.

“I’ll get a flagon brought up.” The statement was simple enough. Yet he knew what it meant. It was about more than a few cups of wine, it was about finally telling her everything.

Whispers filled his head telling him to run. Excuse himself. Pack a bag. Find a boat. It was better to die than to see that look on her face: that pity, that shame, that hatred. Jaime wasn’t a coward by any stretch, but when it came to matters of the heart, he had the bravery of a timid maiden.   
  



	5. Chapter 5

In the library sat six grand chairs around a table, much like those Brienne had seen at Harrenhal a million moons ago. She wondered who ruled there now, which house had claimed it after the war was won and people returned to their lives. Tarth was a far reach from court, and they rarely heard word of what was happening in the rest of the world. Her father had built a rapport of sorts with Maester Samwell and now received more frequent news, but he seldom shared it with her.

“Drink,” she ordered as she filled his cup. He took it gratefully and gulped it down. “Let’s play a game: a person asks a question, if the other person believes they’re lying, they say so. If the person is lying, they drink. If they were telling the truth, the accuser must.”  
  
“Drinking games again?” Jaime was surprised she would suggest such a thing, after last time. “You start.”

Brienne glanced the empty chairs around and longed for Tyrion’s cheerful company in a sordid kind of way. His presence might ease matters along.

“What were your intentions when you left Winterfell?”   
  
“To save her, if I could,”

 “Lie.” He widened his eyes at her but brought his cup to his lips and drank.

For a long moment, she stared at him expectantly until he realised, he was supposed to tell the truth now. 

“To kill her and end the war." 

“Lie.” He opened his mouth to argue but caught her glare and thought better of it. He drank.

“She didn’t need to die alone,” Jaime admitted shyly, eyes tracing the veins in the oak of the table as he awaited her response.

Brienne’s jaw tightened at hearing that. Truths were always hard to stomach when it came to this man, years of it hadn’t hardened her enough to not react. He wasn’t looking at her as she bit her lip so hard it bled and took a moment to digest this truth. “Your turn.”   
  
“Why haven’t you told your father about Winterfell?”   
  
Curiously, he lifted his gaze to her and noted the way she swallowed thickly at the question, as though mulling over her answer before she spoke.    
  
“He’s like to die soon. He can die believing me a maiden intact, I won’t hurt him pointlessly.”

“Lie.”   
  
“He’d kill you and I don’t _really_ want you dead.”

The way her voice wavered over the word _dead_ sent a shiver down his spine. Jaime had longed to hear those words for weeks, and yet they were nothing more than a diversion. His joy was cut short by the way she fiddled with the buckle of her gauntlet. It was true, but not _the_ truth.   
  
“Closer, but still untrue.”

“I can’t lie to him!” she yelled, towering over him now as she once had in far less modest dress. On her feet, the timidity in her was gone and she was a knight once more, ready for a fight at any moment. Her guard was up. Her chest rose and fell with rich, red rage and she stood there for a long while before settling, dropping back into her seat. “This is about you. I should never have suggested this damn game. Tell me about King’s Landing.”   
  
He could see the way he infuriated her. Once, that might have filled him pride. This unenviable frustration was plain to see and he had caused it, in their early days, he would’ve thrived off seeing her like this. She was an unflattering shade of pink and her thick mannish brow seemed to thicken as she frowned.

“Tyrion had a plan to smuggle us out. He didn’t want Cersei dead, much as he despised her, and more than that, he knew I’d never leave without her. He had a boat ready, for us to sail to Essos or the Summer Isles, to start a new life. I was so shocked he’d even thought of such a thing, but I wasn’t going to go through with it. I was going to find her and hold her and try to ease her woes until Drogon burned us alive." 

Her features softened as she listened, though when she met his eyes, she hardened again for half a moment, just to show she wasn’t so easily calmed. Her eyes were glassy with pity, for the poor fool who loved his despicable sister.

“But then I saw her, and she was so frightened and weak and broken. I’d never seen her like that, not in forty years. It was like the day she was betrothed to Robert but a hundred times worse. She was terrified and I was half delirious with blood loss, Euron Greyjoy poked me full of holes before I killed him, and I knew I’d die in the attempt but I wanted to save her. She said she didn’t want our baby to die and it was the first time I really believed that there _was_ a baby. She was so scared, and I was supposed to protect her and I couldn’t, so when the roof came down over our heads, I held her in my arms. I wish I could say I’d be gallant or brave or even clever, but I wasn’t. I was just a man trying to protect someone he loved.”   
  
There was a long silence between them. It wasn’t normal for them. The only time they had been quiet like this was in the weeks after Jaime lost his hand, and that was because they had to be. The quiet didn’t suit them, there was a rapport between them that never took a moment to rest.

“She deserved it, “Brienne stated plainly. 

If it wasn’t for the table between them, he might have taken a sharp hold of her in that moment. Anger filled him up and burned through him, turning the green of his irises the shade of wildfire as he looked up at her and saw the softness there. It confused him.

“She was hateful, and a murderer and she deserved to die. But she didn’t deserve to be alone when she met her end. None of us deserve that.”  
   
 _I don’t forgive him for the rest of it,_ she told herself. _He could’ve told the truth. He could’ve said goodbye. He didn’t have to sneak off like a criminal in the night._  
  
There was so much more to it. Good intentions don’t fix terrible deeds. Brienne wondered if he cared at all, about any of it, if there was anything in the world that mattered any more in his mind.

The jig was up. She was exhausted and nothing would respite her but solitude. Her bed was calling her and as she curled up under the furs, she fought the sense of sympathy that eased its way into her heart like an intruder.

 


	6. Chapter 6

The spring brought with it fresh fruit and warm evenings, a blessing to them all but no one more than the farmers who longed for the sun after the dry and desperate winter. It warmed their backs as they worked. Long, endless fields, vast crops ripe for harvest, and the eager sound of coppers in the pockets of the peasants each day. At the Lord’s dinner table, there was a feast of long forgotten delicacies laid out for Selwyn and his daughter. “Will Olyvar not be joining us today?” Selywn asked. “Too busy?”  
  
“No. He’s eating with the other servants tonight, apparently he wants an early night.”  
  
“Perfectly fine, I suppose.”

“I presumed he had told you.” Servants supped before the evening meal was served, though in such a small household, they tended to do as they pleased. Lord Selwyn was just and kind, he bid his people do as they wished as long as they did no harm. Tarth was perhaps the happiest place that Brienne had ever been, and it wasn’t just because of her childhood. She’d seen enough of the world to know what misery looked like, and it was a rare thing to see in Evenfall.

“He doesn’t deem to tell me anything,” said her lord father.

“I shall speak to him about that. If he’s going to squire a landed lord, he might at least learn what that means. Inexperience is no excuse for acting an imbecile. Tarth might not be one of the great houses, but we deserve his decency.”

Lord Selwyn gazed at her with the same bafflement he did the first time he caught her with a sword. “Why do you care how a squire behaves? He has no bearing on how my day goes.”  
  
In war, Brienne had learned to live without the niceties of court, not that she’d ever really cared for them. However, they weren’t missed on her. “You deserve the best of things, Father.” She wondered how he’d truly fared in the siege. _Has he forgotten how he ought to be treated? He’s Lord of Tarth and he deserves dutiful servants who follow his orders and bring him the food he likes and run him a hot bath when he wants one._

The facts were true enough…but her father was not a man who liked to ask for things. He’d raised her to be the same. She wasn’t to _expect_ anything of anybody. She was a lady, not a tyrant. _They were her people, not her prisoners._

“I think you expect more of a baseborn Riverlands boy than you ought,” he said. “Would you ease up on the lad?”  
  
_Expectations,_ she thought. _All that man has ever done is disappoint me. It’s true I should stop expecting anything good of him._

Her father ate plentifully and chattered on about how the stable boy had proposed to a merchant’s daughter and he’d been rather offended by the alleged affront to his position. The everyday happenings of Tarth were not something to be gossiped about, unless one was bedbound with the ability to do nothing else. He finished his plate and bid the servants goodnight with a cup of wine still in his hand. “Why do you despise him so?”  
  
_I will not tell him,_ she told herself. _I cannot bring myself to see the look in his eye, like the first time I disobeyed him, like the first time I said I wanted to leave this godsforsaken castle._ Lord Selwyn was a kind man, however, he couldn’t abide secrets being kept from him; his roof was his own and he wouldn’t harbour whispers that had yet to meet his ears.

Brienne shied away. “I don’t despise him.”  
  
“You’re doing a convincing job of pretending, then.”  
  
“He proved himself a traitor. I resent the fact that he survived when better men did not, but that is something far tamer than hatred.”  
  
“Maybe he was a traitor. Betraying a queen he never asked to follow and never pledged himself to is far less than killing the king he swore to protect, though. You forgave him that, what’s different?” _He doesn’t know the truth of all that, he still believes the lie._

“You don’t know the truth of that, Father. It’s a story made of secrets that aren’t mine and I won’t betray his confidence. You ought to know I would never forgive him if there wasn’t more to it. You raised a loyal daughter, and I’ve never strayed from that.”  
  
 “I understand.” Brienne wondered if he would leave it there, but her father was a demanding man and he would not settle. “So tell me the secrets of yours, of why you treat him so.”  
  
A gulp of wine to ease her lips, though white wine still made her wince a little with each swallow.

“Things happen in war that would never happen in peace and be acceptable. Only the men who were there can really comprehend the things they saw and said and did. I don’t mean to be disrespectful when I say you are lucky enough not to have known true conflict. Tarth stayed out of Robert’s Rebellion, they kept their heads down at every turn and it was always the right decision, but a fighting man knows things that a nobleman cannot. You might judge him too harshly, I fear.”  
  
“Harsher than you?” asked her father. “He has the guest right. I will not kill him, or maim him, or cast him from our home if he intends no ill doings.”  
  
Brienne swilled the wine around if only for a moment’s peace before she conjured a storm that was like to stir the Gods themselves. _Mother, grant me mercy._

“Battle does something to a person, sets the blood inside of them alight, and there nothing to be done about it but to give in. You see, it seems an awful great thing but it wasn’t and I don’t know how to-” Brienne began to ramble until her father’s hand covered hers where she held her cup and she pulled it back. _He plagues my thoughts,_ she complained. “The maiden’s gift…it’s his.”  
  
“Given willingly?” asked Selwyn sternly, easing visibly at her timid nod though fury lingered in his tight jaw and at the juncture of his brow. “That’s what angers you? He didn’t betray the Dragon Queen. He betrayed you. Well, he’s a fool and a beast and I’m wont to drop him in the sea but if you ask that he remains safe, I will not overrule you.”  
  
Brienne met his gaze. “I’d be happy to watch him go if there was anywhere in the world I thought he might be safe, but there isn’t. What if I sent him away and he was killed? What if he drowned on the way there or Gods forbid, ended himself? I swore an oath to keep him alive once and I don’t think I’ll ever release myself from it.”  
  
Her Lord Father was tired with the wine and with the day. His eyes drooped sleepily and sometimes when she caught him napping, she feared him dead. The war had taken it out of him. _He wasn’t even there,_ she told herself. But his heart was, and that was tiresome enough to bear.


	7. Chapter 7

The sky was as blue as she ever thought it could be. Sandpipers and gulls flew overhead and she wondered at where they were going; the cloudless sky played stage to a litany of far off dancers in the sky, and they were so elegantly precise. The way they moved reminded her of the ballroom, where guests would pause and pass each other and it would all be so perfectly orchestrated. _They must know exactly what they’re doing._ Brienne watched them as they went and envied their purpose. At least she knew what purpose was, but King Bran had bid her come and babysit the Kingslayer. _Why must the Starks tie me so tightly to this foolish man?_

Inside, she could hear Jaime struggling with his horse’s bridle but she was not eager to help. A blaring heat set upon her and she revelled in the way the sun kissed her now pale skin. As a girl, she had been rather golden but winter on the mainland had cursed her with a milky complexion.   
  
Eventually, Jaime emerged with the palfrey walking dutifully beside him. He had learned well enough how to saddle a horse for himself but the lingering soreness of his injuries, still not entirely passed though he would deny it, hindered him some. He had mustered all his strength to ride with her, and she couldn’t help but feel a little gratitude for his effort. Jaime Lannister was not a man who _tried_ for anybody and yet, here he was.   
  
Brienne could not criticise the way he rode: even in discomfort, he rode as well as her. The route they took followed the road and wound through one village and the next. It didn’t take long to get from Evenfall to the southern coast of the island. He ought to know the entire isle if he were to serve as castellan for all intents and purposes. In title, he might be squire, but he certainly wasn’t going to stoop to such duties if he could escape them.

 _You are no better than a squire now._ Brienne wondered at his future, and at her own. _Could he ever be more than this? Might I  ever return to King’s Landing and take up my  post as Lord Commander again?_ It was all settled now. Her father needed her confirmation that Jaime was a man worth his salt and that he deserved the meat and mead of Evenfall’s table. The deal was struck, and Tarth was not her place. She had a place…. a thousand leagues away.

“Your father is a kind man,” said Jaime. “I believe he would treat me well.”   
  
_Has he not, already?_ Brienne questioned. The Evenstar was a generous man and was most welcoming to his guests, even those who came unwelcomed. The illness that plagued him had made him a little less amicable, she supposed. Early nights and simple meals and brief conversations, but that was nothing more than could be expected of a host as old as he. Brienne thought Jaime rude to imply otherwise, though she didn’t jump at it. Questioning Jaime Lannister’s every misspoken word would have them all occupied for a lifetime; she’d learnt that early on.

“I misunderstand you.”

“It’s time I make my way east. I have outstayed my welcome here, even if you might say otherwise. The servants don’t _know_ but they can tell. I don’t belong with them, and I don’t belong with you. I put everyone at odd ease. Leaving is for the best, I believe.” Jaime had slowed his mare to walking pace and turned to face her as he spoke.

Lord Selwyn and Ser Wendal might have something to say about such a declaration. He was a ward of House Tarth and he wasn’t bidden to wander off as he chose, or so Brienne told herself. An outlaw and a traitor, he was hardly fit to walk to town alone. _Strike out on his own and head for Essos?_ Brienne laughed to herself. He would get himself killed before he even arrived.

“Your Lord brother struck a deal with House Tarth. Sanctuary here, in exchange for a hundred gold dragons a year to keep you, and your service as a man of our house for the rest of your life. You do not get to free yourself from a deal made far above your station. My father swore an oath to keep you well, you are _bound_ to remain in his service.”  
  
The old Lion looked aghast at the declaration, Brienne observed. Nobody had told him of such a deal, not her father, nor his brother in their brief correspondence. Jaime furrowed his brow in confusion and it was almost as if she could watch each thought, each singular revelation occurring inside his mind. _He won’t doubt my word,_ Brienne knew.

“I was unaware of such a stipulation. If it is true, I must remain here and will do so. Your father has proved himself an honourable man and I will not break any vow to him, whether it was mine or my lord brother’s.”

 _Was there ever a vow less binding?_ Brienne asked herself, knowing that if he had the good sense to ask her lord father, she would be branded a liar in his eyes and he would leave despite her.   
  
They completed their days’ plans if only so they didn’t have to explain their early return to Lord Selwyn. The coastal breezes drove them forth and their plans were done earlier than they’d expected. On the ride home, they did not chatter, though Jaime kept up a rendition of Jenny of Oldstones all the way. That song reminded her of better times, of happier moments, and if it weren’t for the sake of his horse, she might’ve shoved him right off just to shut him up for half a minute.

 _Why did I even say it?_ Brienne wondered if she had lost her mind. If all of the fighting and the struggling to survive had taken her senses and left her alive, but with folly to fill her days. _He would’ve been gone,_ she chided. _Gone away and out of my mind forever._ Some part of her didn’t want him to leave and she wasn’t sure which part or why or how in the name of the Stranger to sate such an inexplicable desire.

“I’ll see you at supper, Ser Brienne,” bid Jaime as he stabled his horse and headed inside.   
  
The thought of supper haunted her for the rest of the afternoon. Brienne thought of how she might explain to her father such a deception, how she might explain it to Jaime. One at a time might be bearable, but together, they would hound her until she admitted the horrible truth. “I want him to stay,” she whispered to her bay mare dejectedly.


	8. Chapter 8

Jaime didn’t raise the subject at supper that evening, nor when they broke fast the next morning, nor the supper after that. She wondered if he had simply taken her word for truth or if he had far greater plans.

Leaving the pair of them alone was a prospect that haunted her. Only in her father’s chambers would she permit the two to converse privately. All other times, she found reason enough to require the company of one or the other of them. 

Lord Selwyn’s chambers were in a short, stout tower in the castle’s eastern wing. He decked them modestly with tapestries and candles, offering a low light in the room that welcomed whispers from his loyal subjects, far from the ears of more curious men

“Lord Selywn, I might ask permission to rehash the deal he struck with you,” Jaime began as he helped the frail man out of his robes. “My brother bargained on my behalf, now I might ask the opportunity to bargain for myself.”

The Evenstar did not respond in haste. He breathed heavily as he was guided from one attire to the next, searching for air as though it hid from him. His muscles had weakened significantly and even the simplest tasks caused him strife though he was wont to admit it. In front of the townspeople, even his daughter, he played the strong and enduring liegelord but here, it was impossible to hide.

 _Some men wear armour as others wear a crown. His title is his protection,_ Jaime thought. _There are fighters and eunuchs and fools and kings and all of them lean on the role they play. Here, he is simply Selwyn Tarth, an old man with a brave daughter who is ready for the Gods._

“Which aspect might you wish to _rehash,_ as you put it?” asked Lord Selwyn.  
  
Jaime hoped it wasn’t impudent. He was cruel, he was sharp-tongued, but he never meant to be a poor guest.

“The terms of my residence here,” said Jaime. “In exchange for a monetary sum, I might leave Tarth and make a new life for myself in the Free Cities or the like. Tarth is no place for a one-handed knight, I have come to realise.”

A fogginess clouded his expression. _Gods be good,_ Jaime plead, _let his mind remain strong._ Jaime recalled the way he’d watched the two queens crumble under the weight of a war far greater than either of them and prayed that such a man as this might make it to his end with thoughts intact.

“Olyvar, you might leave tomorrow if you wish. No stipulations were made. If you were to leave tomorrow, I might be abashed but there would be nothing dishonest in it. You have your freedom: you are my squire, not a prisoner.”   
  
_He has truly forgotten himself,_ Jaime feared. _Brienne had told him of the deal herself._

Years spent fretting over a child, half a world away no less. It had taken its toll, and if it weren’t for the weakness in his legs or the way he gasped with every breath, Jaime might have believed him well. But it all added up so easily: the madness of the old would come for all those the Stranger blessed with great age. 

“My lord, I assure you, I have been informed of my responsibility to remain until my dying day unless I am bid elsewise by the Evenstar himself.” Calling a Lord a liar was a rather stupid idea, yet he remained the stupidest Lannister. “Your daughter herself told me of the deal my brother struck.”

The candles seemed to dim in conspiracy around them as Lord Selwyn flicked his gaze from side-to-side in confirmation of their solitude. The owls might be listening, but they knew secrets far meatier than this. Whispers were heavy cargo and they seldom made it to the mainland, if passage was ever made for them at all.

“Ser Jaime,” Selwyn insisted. “There is no such _deal._ Your brother wrote and plead for your sanctuary, there were no terms attached. I am a fickle man when compared with the unwavering loyalties of my daughter, she puts my honour to shame, but I assure you, the words of my house are not lost on me. Venerable as our vow, Ser Jaime. I do not barter with lions, they are the crudest of business partners. You have, my boy, been played a fool.”  
  
Jaime thought on his words and wondered if it might be true. His words were unfaltering. _But, Brienne wouldn’t lie,_ he told himself, _unless it was for good._ It would not be the first time he had played a fool by a beautiful woman and yet he still struggled to believe she would use him so. _What was her purpose?_  
  
“Might I be excused, my lord?” Jaime asked as he guided the old man to his bed and settled him there.

“Go on, man,” he bid with a warm chuckle.

The moon was bright and Lord Selwyn knew it would keep him awake all night if he let it. As he heard the door shut behind Jaime, he pressed his eyes shut and thought of how he’d watched his daughter fend off so many suitors, one after another. He went to sleep dreaming of Ser Humfrey Wagstaff’s broken bones, and of Ser Jaime fastening a bride’s cloak of crimson and gold about her shoulders. _Take her under your protection,_ he thought, _so she might leave mine._


	9. Chapter 9

_You have been played a fool,_ he had said, oblivious to all that such a statement meant.

“The Lady Brienne is abed,” a maid informed him as he strode toward her chambers and begged audience. “A squire can’t bring news enough to bring the lady from her bed.” The girl dropped her gaze as though she were scared of the crippled boy Jaime played at being, as though she might know his silvering hair and his bright emerald eyes.

“Lord Selywn sent me,” he insisted. “You might take it up with him if I am interrupting.”  
  
“I’ll tell her you’re here,” mumbled the maid. 

“It’s late and I need to rest if we’re to train at dawn,” reminded Brienne as she sent away the nerve-ridden girl. “I’m sure my father has some message for me, if you might relay it to me before the sun reclaims its residence.”   
  
Jaime stood and watched her, paying little heed to her words, noting instead the way she wrapped her gown tightly around her waist. _Exposed. Not cold, as I had thought, but exposed. Afraid, perhaps, in part._ He tried to conjure up some explanation but could think of nothing but the way he’d hurt her, broken her own faith with his betrayal and sent her back into her father’s open arms. _Lord Selwyn. He would hate me if he knew, and yet she won’t expose the wrongs I did. She is too kind for that, even now._ Brienne never let malice infect her, not even when it came to revenge. _She will never do me wrong unless she ought._

They stared each other down for what felt like an eon, as Jaime took stock of the woman in front of him. She was stronger than he ever recalled seeing him, after everything they’d seen.

“You told me false,” Jaime stated plainly.

 _Deny it,_ dared Jaime, hoping to see a glimmer of the fight he had once known in her. “You said your father made a deal but nonesuch was struck, not according to him. Why lie, wench?”   
  
“Careful, Olyvar. These aren’t the Riverlands, the men within these walls might cut you down for speaking so of their lady.”   
  
Brienne sneered at him, she reviled the thought of him discussing her with the Evenstar. Her reputation remained somewhat intact so far from Winterfell and she would not let him besmirch it with his words. He would leave her soon, she knew, and then it would be of no worry. _Why confront me?_ He could’ve taken off as a thief in the night: it wouldn’t be the first time.

He was remarkably calm. His short temper was something she had grown accustomed to and yet it made no appearance now. They were far beyond such childish disputes and yet here he was, demanding an explanation. _What difference does he think it will make?_

“My father ought to gain something from protecting you so dutifully, whether he would demand it or not. You have been nothing but a hindrance since the day you arrived and now you intend to sail east and make merry with the common whores of Essos?”   
  
Jaime had almost laughed at that, though he bit back his smirk. No whore would take his coin. “You care how I spend my days all of a sudden?” he remarked as though he believed her for a moment. “I might have believed you, if you hadn’t told me so many tales of your father and how _venerable_ he was.” Jaime’s eyes bore into her suspiciously. The wench had never demanded anything of anyone and she certainly wasn’t going to start here.

“Essos is an ocean away. Ravens fly, and so words, as fast as the wind. You are not a stranger there, you are in the bedtime stories of children and the songs of the courts and the whispers of the eunuchs. Essos will treat you no more kindly than the Seven Kingdoms would.”   
  
_Still she does not wish me dead._ He pictured her shoving Oathkeeper through his gut. If she was commanded, by Lady Sansa or King Bran, she would certainly do it. If the Gods themselves asked her, she would not flinch. _Perhaps the Stranger will take command of her swordhand in the training yard tomorrow._ Jaime longed for such a simple end.

“Lies. You never were good at them.”    
  
She glared at him for half a minute before stalking towards the door with what appeared to be grievous intent. _Gods, he makes me furious._ Brienne could not bear to look upon him, her heart was in conflict with her better senses and it was tearing her asunder. “Goodnight, Olyvar,” she bid coarsely. “I will speak to you in the morning. I find your company has tired me.”

That was what infuriated him most, what forced him to remain. _I ought to strangle the wench for the mere mention of sleep._ He was seething with rage unbecoming of his current guise. “I will remain, and if you call upon your guards, I might tell them who I am.” Brienne’s blue eyes burned him as he spoke and he instantly found himself cowed by the threat of her wrath, though the lion was not dead yet. “I will not let you sleep while I lie awake wondering what crime so grim I have committed as to have you hold me hostage here. I am a foul man it’s true, kill me for sins and make me crow food if it please you. Tarth is a prison and you are my gaoler, tell me my crimes, I beg.”   
  
That much Brienne could do, though her nerves quivered under his unfaltering frown and she wondered if she had the gall. _He might never forgive himself,_ she thought, _or he might laugh in my face._ No mind, she was used to that. “You stole my future from me. You took my maidenhood and any notion of affection I ever had and you rode off with them in the night. You took what I had and you used it and when the opportunity arose, you cast it aside for a more worthy prize. I will not let you go and live a life of plenty while I wallow, here or in the capital, with nothing but my sword to keep me company the rest of my days.”  
  
 _He never thought he’d see me again,_ Brienne realised. She had suspected all along but the way his eyes fell, the way his breathing almost ceased, it told her for a fact. Torrhen Caron stole her girlish innocence. Red Ronnet took her good faith. Humfrey Wagstaff took her hope. None of them had taken her heart though, not even good King Renly now she looked back at it.   
  
“I ask your leave, milady,” he mumbled as he went for the door with shame spread across his cheeks like the war paint of the Dothraki. Brienne didn’t stop him, didn’t even try.


	10. Chapter 10

Brienne paced her room for the best part of an hour, mulling over in her mind the things she had said, the things he had done. Why had the gods forsaken her? _Have I not been loyal?_ If the Gods were judging her for letting Jaime into her bed, they ought not to have made sinning such a joyful experience.   
  
The shout came out of nowhere. Brienne might have believed she had imagined it if it weren’t so loud and long and full of anguish. She knew that scream, she had heard it more than once on the road after Jaime lost his hand, though never quite so loud. The guards were like to imprison him if his temper let his secret spill.

Under cover of night, Evenfall Hall was even more beautiful than in the sun. The moon gave a radiant glow to the stones and cast everything ashimmer. So many nights of her youth had been spent wandering the halls once all, but the guards, were asleep in their chambers. Every inch of the castle, half of the island in fact, was etched into her mind as the most precious of memories.

He was in the training yard, with his head hung between his knees and a red blush of rage coating him head to toe. Without caution, she approached him and pulled him to stand by his collar. Borne of instinct, his left hand went for her throat as he rose, only to drop as soon as he caught a glimpse of her.

“To my chambers. Now.” Her commands were firm and unwavering, unlike any words to come of her mouth before. “Be as angry as you like but do it where the guards can’t carry you off to the dungeons, you fool.”

Shame washed over him as the moonlight did and she wasn’t sure which one left him looking so sullen. He followed after her as if bound in shackles once again, though his remorse kept him more tightly bound than they ever could have.

Her chambers seemed so dark and empty now. The fire burned on and yet there was a coldness in the room when they returned, his presence sending a chill through her. _He can’t stand my presence,_ she thought with a smirk. He would have to endure it, as she endured him.

“Milady,” he began breathlessly as though it was tiresome enough simply to address her.

“I struggle to see how you have made this about yourself once again but here we are. You treat me like dirt underfoot and again I save you from imprisonment or worse.” _For a time, she had stopped counting but now, he was very much indebted to her once again and she longed to hold it over his head._

Timid as a lamb, he bridged the gap between them and started pulling ever so gently at the knot at her waist which held her gown closed. Her eyes were filled with surprise, but no repulsion rested there. Much as the first time, they were shy but not stony.

“What are you doing?” she whispered nervously for the hundredth time since they had met.

Her gown fell open to expose a cotton shirt that fell long to the bottom of her thighs, she let it fall easily off her shoulders though it was her body working against her better instincts.

“Let me treat you like a lady,” begged Jaime and there was a softness in his voice she’d never heard. It quivered with vulnerability and she hated herself for not striking him across the cheek. “Let me serve you.”

Brienne longed to cast him out of her chambers and go to bed but the cold air was inside her shirt and her nipples were hard against the thin fabric. “Then serve me,” she commanded almost as she might upon the battlefield, and it was out of her mouth before she could stop herself.

She undressed herself and then him, recalling the way her heart had pounded in her chest and the warmth that had filled her being. He was hard already as she pushed his smallclothes to the ground. _He would’ve been so terribly desperate if I’d turned him away,_ she thought. His hands were all over her suddenly, soft and careful in their path. _He makes me feel so fragile._ Never had she despised and adored a feeling so much.   
  
“Gods,” he whispered against her collarbone. His lips blazed a trail down across her breasts, along her waist, stopping to kiss the inside of her elbow as he went, before he settled himself between her thighs. She was bold with him now, unafraid of what he thought of her: he was here to give her exactly that. Against the inside of her thigh, he whispered: “How did I ever leave you?" 

Forcefully, she reared her hips against him and buried herself in the feeling of his mouth against her. It was infuriating and glorious and she wanted to kill him and kiss him right at the same time. _You did,_ she thought. His tongue felt too good for her to linger too long in her thoughts, instead she lost herself in him.

Inside of her, he tried to be tender in his touches but she didn’t want that from him now. With every thrust, she met him hard and fast until they were almost rutting like wild beasts. Jaime kept a tight hold of her, buried his face in the crook of her arm and tried to imagine she didn’t despise him.   
  
He made her come three times before he made to draw back from her, he was fit to burst. Brienne dug her fingers into his arse cheeks and held him there tightly. In the disarray of it all, it took a moment for his eyes to find hers, but she nodded with an unfamiliar determination and he pushed deep inside of her again, filling her. 

“Brienne, I-” he began as he flopped down onto the bed beside her and mindlessly danced his fingers over her taught stomach.

“Goodnight, Olyvar. I’ll see you at dawn.” Her tone was colder than she’d ever sounded, it almost scared him yet wordlessly, he dressed and left her to her bed. _That cannot happen again,_ Brienne told herself.


	11. Chapter 11

The fourth time Jaime ended up in her bed, Brienne realised she needed to say something, and whatever it was, she was going to have to make him believe it.

“This shall be your penance, to make bed with a great oaf of a woman,” she declared as he dressed himself. “In another life, my father might have made you wed me too but I’m not so cruel as that. No one will know, not the maids, not the guards, and Gods willing, not my Lord Father. You will come after the castle sleeps and leave before they rise, and you will not touch me outside of this room, not ever.”   
  
It felt like a contract being laid out in front of him, a roll of parchment for his signature. Except they weren’t in his solar at a table. They were in her bed, naked and damp with sweat. There was no essence of business to what they were doing and yet her words gave it one.

Dutifully, he knelt between her thighs and made her writhe and moan beneath him. Only briefly would he tease her, for when he took too long, she would get impatient and take matters into her own hands, casting him aside like a tourney sword.

“So beautiful,” he murmured against her skin. Every inch of her body knew the whisper of his compliments, her ears aside, she took care not to hear his kind words for fear they might hurt her. “a goddess made mortal.”

Fucking tired her. Some nights she would be asleep before he had even started dressing but every morning without fail, she would wake to an empty bed and that was assurance enough that the servants hadn’t seen him.

Rumours thrived in a castle so quiet as Evenfall. Yet they moved swift as the wind, and as soon as they were cut loose, they would reach her so she was certain that nothing had been said as yet. Discretion was a thing that she had mastered as a child, well equipped to hide from the judgment of those who might hold her acts against her. 

 _He will never know my love,_ she promised herself.

Jaime lingered when he could. The nights she fell asleep were his favourites, he would stay beside her and watch her sleep and wonder what she dreamt of. More than once he’d been caught out and had to run back to his chambers half-dressed when the first light showed itself beneath the horizon.

 _She will never let me love her as I could have,_ he dwelled. All _for a decision that gave a vile woman a few moments of peace._  It became their routine nevertheless and he found a notion of joy in bringing her this comfort. It made him think of Cersei sometimes, how he had longed for her so desperately and how she had given in only to find she needed him in some broken sort of way. But Brienne was a very different sort of broken, and her scars were all his fault.

“I fear my father might suspect us,” Brienne admitted one night as he stepped inside her chambers, already fiddling with the ties of his shirt. “We have been acting more strangely than ever, he knows something is wrong.” 

“I can go-” he offered shyly, dropping his hand to his side. _She will never let me come to her again,_ Jaime feared. 

Brienne watched him: the way his eyes lost all the life in them at the mere prospect of leaving, how his hand fell against his hip as though it had no purpose left in the world, how the barely-there curve of his lips she had grown used to quivered.

“No, I-” Brienne began awkwardly. “I only thought to tell you. We might try to behave better in his company and the company of those who report back to him.”   
  
With every night they spent together, Jaime grew bolder in his touches. He knew exactly the line of her shirts fell so he might leave a mark upon her without being beaten for his carelessness. He had learned which secret spots were most sensitive to his touch: the crook of her right knee, the underside of her breasts, the jut of her hipbones. She gave into him more easily with every night, knowing he could give her what she wanted, no longer in need of guidance. _He is tasked with pleasing me,_ she reminded herself. _He is just doing his job._

For weeks, they went on like that. He would come to her at night and in the days, they would act as if she still had some contempt for him. It wasn’t really _acting,_ per se. She still loathed his presence and yet, she welcomed it under cover of night.

Lord Selwyn was awash with suspicion and he might have bid his servants to spy for him if he had any doubts about what was going on under his roof. At breakfast and at luncheon and at supper, he would watch the way the Lannister boy gazed so longingly after his Brienne as if he wasn’t trying to hide it at all. His efforts were an embarrassment to the mere word ‘deception’ and still, they kept up the rouse.

Moon tea became part of her routine, along with all the rest of it. She knew where to get it discretely, if a person had the money to keep mouths closed and she was never short of that. The people of Tarth barely recognised her since she had returned from the war; gone was the young maiden, here was the hardened warrior.

Sharing her bed didn’t win Jaime her favour by any stretch. Every time they met eyes, every time he kissed too close to her mouth, every time he spoke too softly: she was always ready to remind him that he was here out of duty.

“You deserve this,” she breathed bitterly one night as he crawled back up the bed having finished her with his mouth. “You always boasted you were strong enough, so endure it and prove yourself.”

Every cruel word out of her mouth left a bitter taste. They weren’t meant for _him_ necessarily, they were simply a reminder to herself of who he was and what he’d done. Each time she berated him, it was in response to a glimmer of affection somewhere buried deep inside of her. She would suffocate such feelings with hatred, or the closest thing she might conjure at the least.


	12. Chapter 12

After he left her for his own bed, she couldn’t find sleep no matter how she tried. Brienne tossed and turned for the best part of an hour before she rose to walk the halls for a while. She wore her robe and nothing more, unafraid of what the servants would say. 

In the stables, she found comfort with the horses. It was a childhood pastime of hers, to hide in the stables with her stolen tourney sword and whisper tales to the ponies of gallant knights and the battles they would fight. Their quiet company was warming to her and yet when she arrived, all she noticed was the dappled palfrey gone from his stall. _Jaime,_ she thought immediately. It had rained and the mud left a path, fresh to be followed.   
  
It led her for half an hour, straight towards the cove she had known best as a child. It was the first time she’d been back there and the moonlight bounced off the shy waves divinely. She climbed down from her own horse and tied his reins loosely around a firm looking rock, close to the purloined palfrey.

From such a distance, he looked half a god. Standing where the sea met the sand, she wondered what kept him there. He’d spent his life on the verge of going somewhere, always holding back. Never letting himself do the things that he longed to do for the sake of those he loved.

“The sun will rise soon,” she offered, making her presence known though still she started him. He spooked as a horse might have, stumbling back a little over his feet and turning to face her.

His red-rimmed eyes were not amiss on her, nor was his unseemly state of dress. If it were daylight, she might have hurried him back to the castle and chastised him for risking his reputation, but this was night and the moon knew all their secrets as the Stranger did.

“I wanted to see it. I haven’t been since the day I arrived here, and the memories of my arrival are a little fuzzy around the edges,” Jaime said. “I always loved the sea, even as a boy. It was the only thing about the Rock that I could abide, though the beaches weren’t as nice as yours.”

White sands and sapphire waters, there was seldom more to be admired on her little island. It was home, and she would never take that for granted. But it wasn’t abuzz with wildlife or trade or even people, the only things it had to boast of? Its peace and its views.

“Have you ever been swimming in the ocean? I know city boys who said they’d been swimming in their tubs but that’s seldom the same, no matter how big the tub.” Jaime shook his head weakly, returning his gaze to the horizon as though he was searching for a boat yet to come. “Come on, then.”

Jaime didn’t even realise what she was doing until she was naked as the day she was born and running straight into the shallows. It wasn’t until she was already in as deep as her shoulders that he pulled his clothes from his body inelegantly and hurried in after her.

 _The servants won’t wake until dawn,_ she told herself. _The townspeople will sleep even later._  
  
In the cool depths of the sea, she lost herself a little and felt almost a girl again. It was remarkable how a familiar place could do that to a person. Brienne found herself wondering what might ease Jaime’s worries the same way. Was there anything left in this world? _Once upon a time,_ she thought, _it might have been Cersei’s embrace that calmed him so._  
  
The water washed over her as she laid back in it and put her in a dream-like state. The moon cascaded down onto her pale skin and gave it a pearlescent glow. She wondered if she might have looked a little beautiful like this, with her face hidden under shadow of night, and her height hidden by the way she laid: she might have looked a woman.

“We should get going soon,” he called to her after a long while, drawing her from thoughts.

For another five minutes, she waded in the silver-blue water and watched after Ser Jaime. She knew why he had come here, she knew what he might have meant to do and it frightened her a little. As he swam, he looked taught with concern and she wondered what weighed him down so heavily this night. He ducked his head beneath the water for a moment and her heart stopped; he hadn’t seen her looking at him and she couldn’t breathe until he rose back up with a quiet gasp.

“Let’s go back,” she suggested and headed for the shore, reaching for her gown and pulling it around her soaked body, not caring how it clung to her, not minding how she looked.


	13. Chapter 13

The moon was swinging gently toward the horizon when they left, darkening their way as they set off at a canter. It didn’t last long, Jaime struggled to keep up anything faster than a walk for very long without his golden hand to hold the reins and he’d left it in King’s Landing. He’d left behind an awful lot.

“How many times?” Brienne asked and wondered if he would have the nerve to play the fool with her, after all they’d been through. He glanced at her woefully, a wincing smile across his lips before he spoke.

“I don’t know anymore,” he admitted shyly. “The first time was when Father told Cersei she was to marry Robert. After Aerys, after losing all three of the children, after my hand – you know about that – and on the way North. I never thought I’d do it, play the Stranger’s puppet. I might be reckless in battle, take more risks than I ought but actually do it? Never.”

They rode in silence for a long time while the pair mulled over his words. Brienne despised herself. She had known she was hurting him but he’d always been so strong. She didn’t even realise what she was doing but she’d done it all the same. She’d used his loyal heart against him and it was the cruellest she’d ever been to anybody.

“I can’t be your dirty little secret anymore,” he uttered with watery eyes, more timid than she’d ever heard him. “You can banish me or drown me. I don’t care. I know you deserve everything I can possibly give you, I _wish_ I could give you that but I’ve spent my entire life hiding the way I feel from everybody around me and I can’t do it anymore. If I just wanted to fuck you, that might be different but I can’t love you behind closed doors. Not after everything we’ve both been through.”

The two horses had come to a halt side-by-side with their riders too distracted to lead them. His eyes had fallen sullenly to his lap and hers were trailed on him with anguish and guilt. It was the first time he’d ever asked anything of her, anything _real_ at least. _He doesn’t want me anymore._  
  
“Okay.” It was barely more than a breath, but he still heard it, sagged with relief at the word. “You can’t do this anymore though, you have to swear it. I can’t see you end yourself, I won’t.”

Around them, the sky had turned a glorious shade of deepest red, and it was like watching the world come to life again ever so slowly. _Will we make it back before the servants wake?_ wondered Jaime. Brienne didn’t care anymore.

“I-”

“Knowing you were going to _die_  hurt me more than you leaving. I could’ve survived that, I’d survived worse, but watching you ride off into the night to _die?_ Gods,” Brienne admitted. “You didn’t _deserve_ to die with her and I hated that I couldn’t make you see it. You don’t deserve to die, Jaime.”  
  
Jaime looked at her quizzically.

The woman was half mad with fright now and he wondered how she’d hidden it when she arrived, if she’d known all this time, as she seemed to. Taking your life was considered a sin but he’d committed plenty enough of those already; what did she long to protect so badly? His soul was accursed already, and soon he would be dead. Why did it matter how? He didn’t understand but he saw the way it consumed her and knew he couldn’t do that to her… _not on Tarth._  
  
“Will you go East?” she asked, praying to the Gods she died before she heard the answer.

“Do you want me to?”  
  
“I want things that I shouldn’t. This isn’t about my wants. I asked you, Jaime.” Her mind reeled with the prospect. _Would he stay if she asked? Could she bear for him to stay if their affair was ended? Would her father keep him if she returned to the capital instead?_

“I want you to stop hating me. I want you to stop punishing me even though I still deserve it. I want to love you in the daylight and know what that feels like. I want a Red Priest to send us back to Winterfell so I might make a different decision.” His spiel was gasping and teary. “I want to give up.”

Brienne wondered where he’d gone. The brave knight who had lost his hand for her, who’d saved her honour, who’d saved her life, who’d fought for the living. Had he died in the Red Keep with Cersei? She barely recognised this man, he was a shell and she knew she was a part of what had turned him into this shivering wreck of a man. _He might be happier away from me_ , she thought. _He might find peace._  
  
“I don’t hate you. I never did. I never even meant to punish you, it just happened because I wanted you and I didn’t want to admit that. I love you and I will say it again once the sun has risen because my feelings aren’t as fast changing as the day is, I assure you. No more secrets, no more hiding, and if you want to go, I will find you a boat and I will watch you go with my blessing.” She wondered where this had come from. She had never been so honest with him before, but here he was, soul bare and barely himself anymore. “If I could find it in my heart to trust you again, I swear I would do it, but I can’t.”

Jaime kicked his horse and made for the castle at a gallop. He had his answer. No matter how kind she had been in her rejection, Brienne could not forgive him for his sins, not entirely. He would leave for Essos with Lord Selwyn’s permission and would find a convenient way to die. _She always deserved better,_ he reminded himself.


	14. Chapter 14

At breakfast, she sat beside him with a shy smile. Lord Selwyn didn’t bat an eyelid at the pair, only ate his bread and jam with a cheerful grin as he read the newest letter from the Citadel, arriving only this morning.  
  
“Father, tell me. What is the news from King’s Landing?” questioned Brienne in hopes of starting conversation.

“The King is still King. The Iron Bank are finally calling in their loans so the Kingdom is bankrupt and the Master of Coin is a bumbling fool. Nothing exciting, alas,” he grumbled as he took another bite of bread. “Peacetime can be rather boring for us folk who tend to watch it all unravel. I’ve nothing but the ravens to bring me gossip for the breakfast table and the ravens are dull as bricks these days.”

Brienne worried for her father. He had grown worryingly thin, no matter the abundant appetite he kept, and every day he seemed to sleep more than the last. Of course, he was four-and-seventy and that was plenty old enough for most men but still, her father lingered like the Ghost of Evenfall.

“I always thought so,” interjected Jaime.

The library was a modest room, filled with only the most common volumes and rarely used. Brienne had never cared for it but now, she found her feet delivering her there every few days.

It was past luncheon when she settled with a copy of Estermont’s Histories upon her lap, and a knock on the door was the last thing she expected. Jaime entered with a wry smile and waited for her nod before approaching. 

“I thought I might tell you of my plans before I go to your father,” he explained. “Remaining here seems impossible now. Being with you and not being _with_ you might be the death of us both. I will find a boat and sail for Pentos, there I could find work as a merchant or the like. It would be something to do.” 

Brienne balked at him for a moment. _Why Pentos?_ she asked herself. _Why a merchant?_ It twisted her gut as her moon blood tended to, the mere thought of him leaving and yet she knew it was the only course of action he could take. He couldn’t stay and yet she wanted him to so desperately. “Stay,” and she had only meant to think it but she’d said it and he had heard and he was looking at her like he didn’t understand her. 

“For what?” She wouldn’t ask him into her bed again, he knew that, she was many things, but she was not Cersei. Cersei might have forced him to love her when he didn’t want to, but Brienne was not that breed of woman. 

“Marry me.” It sounded almost like a command behind the way her voice shook. “Court me, take me for your whore. I’ll send ravens to every corner of the kingdom telling them of our arrangement, but I won’t let you run to Pentos to die, not if you have any care at all for me in your heart.”

Seven years of hating and respecting and liking and loving one another had come to this. If it wasn’t for the table he clung to hopelessly, Jaime might have fallen to the floor. His brow was furrowed like he might figure out a way to interpret it differently. _Marry me,_ she had said and he wanted to laugh. The first lady knight and the first woman to propose to Jaime Lannister, of course she was.

“I won’t press you to marriage, not when all your life you’ve cowed from that commitment and what comes with it. I will court you, if you’ll have me, and when the time comes, you might allow me to propose to you,” he suggested weakly and, in his eyes, Brienne could see a glimmer of the man she knew as he mumbled. “Gods, wench.”

Brienne wanted to smack him and yet she found instead, she laughed. The sunlight spilled through the window and he looked almost the golden lion she had seen at the Dragon Pit. It unnerved her. She longed for the Jaime who rode to Winterfell and kissed her and stayed with her when everyone else was gone. She longed for the Jaime who hadn’t lost his sister or himself quite yet.

“I will tell my Lord Father, and if he thinks it agreeable, the guards and the maids and kitchen will be told the truth of your identity. You needn’t hide here anymore, not if it’s truly safe.”

Brienne wondered if they could hope to make a life here. She had no plan to marry, at least not to anyone else, and there was little left of her reputation. They might stay here for the rest of their lives: they would have to name an heir to Tarth but that was no hard task with honourable men searching for purpose so desperately after the war’s end. 

The space between them felt was unbearable and yet he didn’t bridge it. Kissing her now, even holding her, might have frightened her and he was well aware of it. He held back and hoped that soon he would be able to hold her as often as he wished.

“Might you take a walk with me, Brienne?” he asked with a wide, obnoxious smile.

When supper came, she told her father of their intentions and watched the way he nodded as if he’d been expecting something of the sort. Her hand on Jaime’s leg beneath the table kept him grounded as he listened to her talk about her affections for him and found he was quite dizzy.

His mind wandered as he tore into his mutton recklessly. _She’ll never really trust you again,_ a whisper told him and all the hatred he’d been harbouring was back in the forefront of his mind. _She might love me,_ he told himself, _but she’ll never let me love her._ His heart ached with longing for her and wished he had his brother to tell him to win her forgiveness. _I lack the cleverness required to show a woman you have changed quite so entirely._


	15. Chapter 15

Jaime was always watching her. His father knew the right of it but the guards would grunt when they caught him leering and send him on his way, suspecting the Kingslayer was lusting after their young maiden Lady.

One day, he was walking through the gardens and heard Brienne arguing with Ser Winston about her plans. From afar, it looked like they were conversing as friends, though in closer consideration, a person might spot the unforgiving hold she kept of his shoulder and the poised position of her knee, aligned right between his hips. 

“I’ll see you this evening, Ser Winston.” Brienne bit out with an essence of finality. Caught up in whatever her plans were; it was like seeing a dog after a bone. If it wasn’t for the tense way she walked, he might have been entirely amused but instead he was unbearably curious. He knew he oughtn’t and yet he found him following after her from a distance.

The walk from the castle to the town was one he had come to learn well. Often, his squiring duties had sent him to run errands among the common folk, and in his newfound title, he was free to wander as he liked. The well-worn road was dusty in the hot sun and it gave up with every scuffing step he took.

“Lady Brienne,” he called once they were out of earshot of the guards, not trying to draw them all running to the aid of some long-forgotten fair maid. Her head reared round at the sound of his voice and instantly he knew that she was in no state for a leisurely stroll to the town. Jogging slightly, his legs carried him to her worry-stricken side. “Is everything alright?”  
  
“Certainly, Ser Jaime,” answered Brienne shortly. “On my father’s business. I’ll see you at supper, won’t I?” Before her words were finished, she was already back at her relentless pace, charging head on at Evenfall Town.

“Might I join you on your walk?” His request was seldom that, but he had asked her all the same as he pushed on to keep up with her.

Brienne was so long in the leg that keeping up with her was more akin to running half of the time, but he’d grown used to it over the years and often found himself outpacing whomever he walked with. He was struggling today however and he knew something was wrong. The wench quickened her pace when she was worried.

“I’m only running to Davenport’s, I’d rather get it done with. Why don’t you meet me in the training yard once I return and we can spar a little?”   
  
They could see the town already, only five minutes away at the brisk pace Brienne had taken up this morning. He hardly saw the point in turning back now, and he was determined to find the source of her concern.

“Come now,” he chided. “I’ll buy you a lemoncake from Wykken’s market stall if you’re sweet.” Her eyes didn’t brighten the way they were like to when he teased her so. She didn’t even crack a smile at the light-hearted tone he took. “Brienne, what’s wrong?”  
  
It was softness in his tone that really threw her. He might have looked at her with those gentle doe eyes and smiled at her broadly but it was his voice that sent her reeling. He didn’t need to know her troubles and yet she couldn’t bear to lie to him, not when he was trying so dreadfully hard to be honest with her.

“It’s woman’s problems, Jaime,” she uttered, awkward as a maiden. Her eyes were trailing firmly on the grass beneath her feet and she would not look up at him. “You needn’t worry yourself.”

“I’m no green lad, Brienne. I’m not entirely oblivious,” Jaime admitted and watched as the blush rose in her cheeks. Cersei had never been so shy, not even as a girl, and it was charming to see the way he could tease her so with nothing but a mention of the Maiden’s curse on womankind.

“Right.” That was the end of it. Side by side, they walked down to the town at a much more companionable pace in a comfortable quiet and he waited dutifully outside as she slipped into Davenport’s seedy little abode.

Inside, Brienne wondered what he would think of her. Logic dictated that he already knew she was taking such measures and yet, the thought of him knowing with doubt sent her shivering. The woman with whom she dealt was little better than a whore, though she had found herself a husband in the form of a smith’s apprentice somehow. _The most vile sort,_ though Brienne. _I need somebody vile for my ends._

This wasn’t the first time she had come, and it wouldn’t be the last. Discretion could be paid for but the respect of the sordid sorts she needed came at a much higher cost. This was the third time she had come, and each time, she would purchase enough to last a moon’s turn, yet still her blood had not come though the moon had waxed and waned now twice.

“I fear it has not worked,” Brienne admitted shyly and saw the pitying look of the peasant woman.

“In such frequent use, it is wont to lose its potency, I fear. Might I offer you a more _permanent_ fix, milady?” The uncouth suggestion turned her stomach and Brienne was set to gut the little letcher though she restrained herself. _I will never return to this place,_ she vowed to herself.   
  
“Thank you, but I find I am no longer in need of your services.” _The babe would come away,_ she told herself. _If I ride enough and spar enough, it will have to._ When she stepped outside, Jaime awaited her with a cautious smile as though in anticipation of bad news. “All sorted.”

It hadn’t been that long. Babes grew and died in mothers without them ever even realising it. No such fate would befall her. Their new arrangement had not yet returned to the bedroom so she would not have to worry for the future, they would not be abed again for months, she expected.

They passed Wykken and her noble courtier bought her a lemon cake as he’d said he would. Through the market they wandered for a while and Brienne wondered if the common folk had yet heard word of the kindling romance between their maiden and the Kingslayer. If they had, it didn’t seem to trouble them. The maids swooned as they always had, and the men gave fearful nods of acknowledgment. _He is still the Kingslayer to them.  
_  
In her mind, she still thought of her moon blood, yet to come, and the babe she feared was growing in her belly. _Mother, give me mercy. Maiden, return your gift. Crone, guide me through this plight._


	16. Chapter 16

It was three more weeks and she’d been worrying relentlessly. Every morning, she would pray for blood in her bed and every night, she would ask the Maiden to aid her. It was as if the babe was determined to quicken in her belly, no matter how she rode and sparred and half-starved herself.

 _Relief,_ she plead. _Where is the relief?_ The blood between her thighs when she woke was thick and clotted, unlike the gift the moon gave her. It didn’t faze her, she knew blood and she knew bleeding but this wasn’t something she could bandage. It felt like the stranger has slipped his scythe inside of her as she slept, but the pain wasn’t the worst of it. She’d expected to be pleased once it was done but instead, she felt unbearably empty.

“Brienne,” greeted Jaime with worry in his tone. “You look pale.”

“Yes, I feel somewhat unwell,” she admitted freely, drawing Oathkeeper from its sheath. “The world keeps turning. I’ll survive.”

It was full of anguish, and every stroke told him something that he couldn’t quite translate. Something she didn’t want to tell him, Jaime knew that much. There was no elegance to the way she fought with him and it unnerved him to watch her slashing so haphazardly at him. It was poor play, and he’d forced a yield five times before he made an excuse and said they’d get back to it on the morrow.

“Might I ask what’s troubling you so?” He had learned not to expect her secrets anymore. Until she deemed him worthy of her trust, he was to be kept at arms’ length, though she was trying her very best and he could see. “I only wish to help.”

Without words, she led him to the stables and sat atop a fresh bail of straw. Leaving a cautious inch between them, he sat beside her and waited as patiently as he was bid.

“That trouble that I went to Davenport’s for,” she began with her fingers wringing through each other. “It was trouble indeed. And no more. There was a babe, and now it’s passed, and I don’t know why I care but I find I can’t stop myself. 

Jaime’s chest ached. He’d lost three children already. Children who lived and laughed and experienced a little of the world. The Father did not want to bless him with such a gift. _A babe would have been a complication,_ he told himself but it didn’t sate the sadness in him. Cersei had lost children over the years, though he was rarely told such news, and each time, he had wondered what took them.

“It grew inside of you a little while, of course you care, no matter how you wanted it gone. It doesn’t make you a bad person,” he promised her and saw the questioning in her eyes: _doesn’t it?_ they asked. “You are divine, and this will not change that.”

Brienne was thinking of his desires. How could she ever give him what he wanted? He’d proved that he was attracted to her but to wed her, to put babies in her belly, that was something else. He deserved a good woman and she was barely a woman at all. Even her womb failed her.

“I thought I’d be relieved but all I can think about is how it might have lived, who it might have been,” her voice was almost hollow and his hand fell to rest on her thigh, running his fingers softly over the thin fabric of her breeches. “I might have been a mother.”

The word stuck to the roof of her mouth. It tasted like failure. Her belly cramped insanely but she didn’t even flinch. Her leg under Jaime’s hand was growing warm and she knew that such a thing as this would send her blood coursing as battle oft did, but all the same she longed for him now. _I want to feel a woman again,_ she thought.

Suddenly, she was on top of him and his hand was in her hair as she kissed him like the breath from his lips was loot to be snatched away. She reached for the ties of his breeches and started unravelling them deftly, mouth never leaving his, not for a moment.

“Brienne-” he mumbled, drawing back from her and  reaching to settle his palm over top of hers. “We shouldn’t.”   
  
_He’s right,_ she thought, and still she wanted him so terribly. _Perhaps he doesn’t want me now,_ she feared and tried to press herself against him in desperation. He wrapped him arms around her and held her tenderly, though still she felt his stiffened cock, tented in his trews.

“I want to feel whole again,” she murmured, burying her face in his neck. “The babe came away and I’ve felt empty. Make me feel whole, Jaime.”

“You will,” he promised, running his fingers up and down the length of her spine. “Not yet, but you will. The maesters always said a woman ought to wait a while after … _this_ happened or she could bleed to death in her bed. I’m not going anywhere.”  
  
She wondered when he might let her be with him again. They had been together every night for months and now, it had been weeks since they last share more than a kiss. It wasn’t just the sex, it was the closeness that came with it and she wondered if they’d ever have that back. She ached to have that back. _I am aching for the babe too,_ she reasoned.

“It hurts,” Brienne admitted nervously. “It feels like I’m being torn apart inside.”

He got her mint tea and fruit to ease her stomach. If she wasn’t so proud, he might have asked some milk of the poppy be brought to her, and yet he knew she would not accept it. She thought herself too strong to need such aid. _She is too strong,_ thought Jaime, _but to see her suffer is killing me._


	17. Chapter 17

The maids giggled when he passed by them in the corridors. The way had aged him, yet the greys didn’t seem to concern them. One night, he had found a rather eager scullion in his chambers and had to politely cast her out. Tarth was awash with women who had never known a man, if he was wont for a virgin, he’d come to the right isle for a certainty.

It became blatant rather quickly. He knew how to make a woman hate him but not how to stop her lusting after him. The maids would flirt with him at the supper table and chatter endlessly about his handsome face. Brienne had come to think all of the girls in her father’s service fickle little beasts of lust and if she’d been crueller, she might have set them all out to find work elsewhere.

“Keava’s following you around like a lost pup,” she pointed out to him one afternoon as though he might have missed the girl at every instance for the past four days. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”

“You sound quite jealous,” he teased with a lusty glance. They were walking arm-in-arm through the courtyard and yet Brienne didn’t give a damn. In half a moment, he was up against a wall with her all over him. For a second, he lost himself in the warmth of her but he knew what she wanted and it wouldn’t do to have her here in the daylight. “You forget yourself, might we retire to your solar?”

Only half a hundred strides stood between them and Brienne’s solar and yet it felt like a pilgrimage that might have taken years. The maids would know. Keava would definitely know. Neither of them gave a damn. His hand was in her hair and her mouth was on his neck and the heat of her might’ve burned the whole castle down without him noticing. She was fervent and gasping as she pulled at his jerkin, grinning hungrily as it fell to the floor.

It had been so long she’d almost forgotten what he felt like. _Almost._ She was desperate for him and the fact that he could see it in her eyes left him straining against his breeches. Like wild cats, they tore their clothes off until they stood bare, her pushed up against the door and him stood between her muscular thighs.

“The Gods must shave loved me all along,” he whispered against the underside of her breast as he pressed feathered kisses there. “to have brought you to me.”

His hand fell between her thighs and she writhed beneath his touch. Her fingers were clinging to the door’s frame as her legs wobbled desperately, her nails were clawing at the wood and it was almost painful. She came with a shudder and wrapped her arms around his shoulders in fear of falling down right there.

 _The bed is too far,_ he thought. _Why not the desk?_ Guiding her messily, he helped her up onto the desk’s edge and swept the quill, ink, and papers aside. They clattered to the floor but he barely heard them over the pleading whimper she gave when he grazed her taught nipple against his thumb.

“Wait,” she snapped out as he brought himself to her wetness. “We can’t. I- Davenport never- I-”

If he loved her any less, he might have damned her. His eager cock could wait, however, as he brushed aside a strand of blonde, pasted to her forehead with sweat. His lips met her temple tenderly as she rattled on in panic.

“You’re right,” he admitted though he despised himself for agreeing with her. “We shouldn’t risk it again.”   
  
If he was any other man, if she was any other woman; his cock would be buried to the hilt and she’d be too dizzy to remember her worries until the morning. But he was Jaime Lannister and she was Brienne of Tarth and that wasn’t how they were together: they didn’t fuck. She’d fucked Olyvar for certain but with him, it was a softer and slower kind of bedding. He wouldn’t take her like a common wench, she was worth far more than that.

“Lie down with me,” she whispered as if afraid he might say no. His hand guided her to the bed and let her settle before he got in beside her, eased by the way she curled up against him so effortlessly. “I want you so badly.” 

His blood was hot with longing. His cock stood sentinel, an unwanted distraction that he battled to forget. _She’s far more important,_ he told himself and it was nothing but matter-of-fact. Brienne had suffered so much for him and he could certainly survive a little discomfort for her sake.

“Marry me,” he uttered almost as if he had meant to say it to himself. Brienne turned her head to meet his gaze and saw the softness there, never doubted if he meant it. “It’s what needs to happen. I thought we could survive like this, but it feels too much like pretending. I’m not vying for your love and you’re not vying for mine, it’s set in stone already and there’s nobody to be courted when we both know that we want this.”   
  
“Jaime-” Brienne began before stopping herself and rethinking her words. It was hard to conjure the right thing to say in such a situation, the right words in the right order. “You were not ready but a moon ago, nothing has changed. If you need a woman, take Keava or one of the other maids. You are not bound to me yet and you cannot wed me, simply for the longings of the flesh.”  
  
Beside the bed was an oak table, finely carved and bearing nothing but a candlestick. It was a strong thing, made to last. Jaime learnt of the brilliant workmanship when he punched his knuckles squarely at its edge and heard the familiar crack of bone. His face looked as though he had been punched, or shamed somehow, and Brienne could but frown at him.

“I do not want _a_ woman. I want _one_ woman, for the rest of my life and Gods, I will spend every day proving to you that there isn’t a woman walking who I wouldn’t murder in cold blood for you! I know your trust of me is not yet as strong as it was, that perhaps you aren’t willing to bind yourself to a man of whom you are not sure of but I will not hear you say that I am unready. I’ve been ready since the day I met you, to make home with a good woman and keep her well. I have spent my entire life longing for that.” 

And so, she agreed. There was reluctance in her tone, and he knew she might change her mind on the morrow but in that moment, she said yes. There was an awful lot to be done and sadly, her agreement meant little in the grand scheme of things, but he was sure to win over Lord Selwyn, Jaime knew. _I’ll tell him of his daughter’s gallantry and if he doesn’t say yes, I’ll duel for her hand, as she always dreamed of._


	18. Chapter 18

When he heard of their intentions, Lord Selwyn gave a fatherly glare to Jaime and a mirthful smile to Brienne. His years of trifling with fools and knights alike had come to nought, his daughter was a hunter in her own right and she had found herself a worthy prize.

Dornish silks had been shipped in for her wedding gown and Tyrion had sent on the Lannister wedding cloak, which had donned the shoulders of many a good woman, though it was threadbare and this was like to be the last ceremony it would see. Eager merchants came to sell their wares and plead the privilege of their lord’s trade. Half of the gentry in the Seven Kingdoms sailed for Tarth to see their tragic heroes wed at long last. Last of all of them to arrive was Tyrion, with Pod and Bronn in tow.

The castle was full to bursting with guests. There seemed to be hundreds of them, the finest ladies and the bravest knights, all met in one place for a happy occasion. _It feels almost impossible,_ thought Jaime, _that they have come to see me wed._ There was no war to cage them in their castles now, they could travel freely as they wished.

The town was abuzz with folks local and foreign. For the first time since Aegon’s Conquest, Tarth was truly ablaze with life. Beneath him on the courtyard, he watched as children played at war and wondered if they’d ever know the real thing. The women sang songs and the men drank ale and life was merry. Jaime wondered at them; he admired their satisfaction and hoped to find it for himself.

“Lord Tyrion is waiting for you in the solar,” a nameless boy told him. _Of course he is,_ Jaime thought and thought of what wise and witty words his brother might bestow upon him now.   
  
Lord Tyrion awaited him by the fire, dressed head to toe in finery. He wore a crimson coat over a golden-leaf shirt. His boots were well-worked leather and his breeches a rich cotton that was soft even to the eyes. The Lannister looked almost a lord in all that garb and yet beneath it, he remained his awkward little self. _He will never learn to be more than that_ , Jaime knew and longed to give his brother the peace that he had found.

His smile was almost cautious in the way he let his lips curl only slightly at first. “Brother mine, how pleased I am to see you here.”   
  
“You sent me here.”   
  
“With a sellsword and a skiff to keep you from drowning,” Tyrion told. “I meant at your wedding. You found yourself a place in this new world. King Bran has built his kingdom, and I have found a brothel well suited to my tastes, but you? The happiness you’ve chased so long is finally caught.”

Jaime and his brother had laughed about the happiness he’d found in a most unexpected place not long ago. Now, after tasting death, he wondered if his little brother knew even a molecule of the joy he had. He thought of the loves his father had stolen away and the victories he’d torn to shreds. _Perhaps,_ he thought, _I have hoarded all the happiness the Gods have offered to the lions and he is left to starve._

Across the room, Podrick was pacing back and forth with his eyes locked firm on Jaime’s form. A fearful sort of hope was in his eyes and his hand stayed wrapped around the golden pommel of his sword. _His trust will be harder yet to win,_ thought Jaime.

 _It is time,_ Jaime realised as he heard the bells of the clock tower chime. Lord Selwyn was not a patient man, and his betrothed was not a patient woman. She might take his tardiness as an excuse to take flight, and so he hurried on his way to the humble sept of Evenfall. _This is the moment I’ve been waiting for, this is the day my life begins._

“I’ve been told she looks quite lovely,” Lord Tyrion mumbled as he wished his brother good luck and rushed to his seat. _She will look more than lovely, you fool. She will be a vision in blue, and her beauty will silence this hall._  
  
 _Gods,_ Jaime thought. Brienne of Tarth entered the sept on her father’s arm, dressed head to toe in the colours of her house. Star bursts embroidered in the finest silks adorned her maiden’s cloak and yet they were no competition at all for the bright glimmer of her teary eyes.   
  
“No need to look so stunned,” Brienne murmured as she arrived at his side, turning her attentions to Septon Unwen. Her cheeks glowed with a rising warmth, and her face wore an unbroken smile.   
  
Jaime heard the septon speak. His mind was on far sweeter things than the Gods and he almost failed to answer when asked who came to claim Brienne. “I!” he had almost shouted which earned him a few tittering laughs amongst the guests.

He wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, he recited the words, he heard the septon’s declarations. None of it seemed to matter. She was _there_ and she was his, and he was hers, until the end of their days.   
  
“Jaime, are you well?” asked Brienne as they walked from the sept hand-in-hand. Her smile never faltered and he was proud of that in some unbearable way.   
  
“The best I’ve ever been, my love,” he answered with a wondrous smile.

All the while, her father kept his gaze set upon his daughter with a sentimentality that only the old could conjure. He watched as his daughter walked with the man she would love for the rest of her life and it felt much the same as seeing her into Renly’s service had. She was a woman grown, and the greatness she was destined for need not be hindered by his worrying. Jaime caught him looking and all he had to say was: “may you be merry for all of your days.”

Still, there was the feast to come. A decade of warring relentlessly had left little time for real joy and celebration: there was time enough now to make up for all of that. They would dance and eat and chatter until the dawn came.


	19. Chapter 19

“My lady, marriage becomes you,” Lord Redwyne told her as he set a cask of arbor white upon their table. “House Redwyne bids you good tidings in this your newest adventure.”  
  
“I thank you, my lord,” Brienne answered dutifully. Sometimes she wondered if they weren’t as tired of it as she. Years of bowing and scraping and bending the knee to one king and then the next, it all made for a rather dull way of living. Even their compliments were an age-old custom. “That man is plain and thick as oats. We wed ourselves this day and still I find myself surrounded by the fools I spent my entire life avoiding.” They had squeezed together closely at the table, sharing a cup and eating from the same plate. The lords and ladies came in a procession until Brienne asked the singers to raise the tempo in hopes of driving people to dance.

“Perhaps they need a leader,” Ser Jaime teased. He was a prince in gold and crimson, strong and firm, with a wide grin and bold intentions. “Might I have this dance, my lady wife? If it were up to me, I’d cast them all into the sea and they could swim home with full bellies and empty pockets. A moment in your arms might sate me, might save their poor souls.” He looked at her hopefully, as if she was wont to cast him into the sea. “I might ask the singers for a rendition of _Alysanne,_ if it please you.”  
  
“Not that song, please, my lord husband,” Brienne answered with a softness, as if she had no fear for the song that told the tale of her late sister’s namesake. _Not afraid,_ she told herself, hearing the singers shift into a mellow tune that made her think of the capital. The two of them had known so many songs and now, each one was a subtle reminder of the past they had shared and the future laid out ahead of them. Lord Selwyn would not be afforded such optimism, his thoughts lingered with the dead. Such a song might stir a sadness in him. “Why not Jenny of Oldstones? That song is the happiest I know in a sense.”   
  
Gleeful, he ushered the singer toward them and made his request. “Would you join me in this folly, Lady Brienne? I would be so glad as to have your arm for a turn.”

 More than once she had danced with a handsome knight and thought of the sweet nothings he might whisper in her ear. Of late, such things had seemed forgotten, and Brienne had known the way the world worked. They had scorned her in her home, and she had smiled sweetly at them and watched them as they scuttled away with new tales of Brienne the Beauty. 

Ser Jaime held her in his arms like a prize to be had. “Never has a bride looked so fair,” he said. “The ladies all envy you I think, and the lords as well if they have brains to think.”  
Brienne had higher hopes that snow would fall upon the beaches of Tarth and send them pearly white. She was about to say such when she saw the look of infatuation in her husband’s eyes and thought better of it. Under the great glass chandelier, they twirled and twisted until she was dizzy with love for him. Silent faces watched in wonderment at their frivolity, their freeness, and she couldn’t help but laugh. When she buried her face in his neck, the giggling that escaped her blew warm air upon his skin. His heart was full to spilling over with admiration for her, and his arms held her tight to him for a long moment as they danced on. “Who would’ve thought the Gods would give us a gift so sweet as this?”   
  
And so, she lingered in his embrace until the moon rose high and the stars grew bright. She might have stayed there all night if she could but there were the formalities to attend to, and she wanted nothing more than to be alone with Jaime. The lords and ladies had started to tire and were slumping in their seats as they waited for the newly-weds to tire. 

“Abed, my lady wife?” Jaime suggested, loud enough for their dancing neighbours to hear. His words captured the attention of every waking soul in the castle, for the maiden’s sake, might they all be permitted to retire at long last?   
  
“Abed.” The guests all smiled and cheered and raised their cups to toast the man and his maiden as they strode out of the halls and to their chambers. _Their chambers,_ Jaime thought. _No more hiding, no more secrets, it was theirs._  
  
It was a wonder that the servants had ever believed they were enemies of a sort. His clothes littered the chambers already: shirts and socks that had never been returned, and it was all of a sudden so clear that this was inevitable. Jaime wrapped her up in a tight hold and wondered how he’d ever watched her walk away from him, how he’d ever walked away himself.   
  
“Are you tired, Brienne?” Jaime asked, as though the quiet of the room had made him realise just how late the hours drew. His feet ached and his ears rang and he wondered how she seemed so perfect in this moment.

“I said abed, Jaime,” her tone was bred of lustful intention, “not to sleep.”   
  
A newfound energy became him. Alive as he ever had felt, he loved her as he’d never dreamt of doing. She moaned his name so freely that the horses in the stables might have scared at such a sound. She was still _her,_ and yet this was an entirely new experience: to know her as a wife, to know her as his, to know her completely.

The sun rose to tell them that sleep ought to be upon them, and they fell into a lazy embrace. Her thigh thrown over his hip and his hand buried in the tresses of her hair. As she fell to sleep, she felt a gentle kiss on her forehead and she knew she wouldn’t dream. _For this is dreaming brought alive,_ she thought.


	20. Chapter 20

She sought comfort from no-one but the Gods. Oft, he heard her whispering her prayers to them and wondered what they knew of her that he did not. _The parts of her that she cannot trust me with, they remain at the mercy of the Gods, as do we all._ Jaime feared the walls that had been built in defence of his advances. They were built to keep him out so would they crumble at his will?  
  
“He asked for you today,” Brienne said as she climbed into bed beside him.  “Would you go on the morrow? I think a face other than mine might lift his spirits.”  
  
Jaime eased his arm around her shoulders, letting her curl up onto his chest as she had grown accustomed to doing each night. “As you wish, my love,” he said. “No face would lift his spirits than yours though.”

Brienne did not speak of her father with him. She relaid the facts but they hadn’t spoken of it, truly, since he’d fallen ill. Only three days after the wedding, Selwyn had woken with a fever and a weakness unlike any other. “Come now, distract me a little while.”

Every night, she would come to bed with sadness and he would love her until she’d forgotten for a moment. She would bury herself in the feeling of him and never come up for air if she could. They would stay like that, wrapped around one another, until she was far from her worries, asleep.  
  
“Lord Selwyn,” greeted Jaime as he stepped into the bed chambers of his good father. “how fare you this morning?”  
  
“As well as the stranger bids me to,” croaked out the old man from where he laid beneath the thick furs. “I didn’t bring you here to speak of my health. For that, I might have asked a maester.”  
  
The sun was shining blindingly into the room and yet it barely reached the canopied bed, consigned to dull shadow. Jaime wondered if Lord Selwyn might ever see the sun again. _Gods be good, let him live,_ he pleaded as he had each day since the man had taken ill.

“How may I be of service to you, my lord?” asked Jaime with a nervous smile. Though he had approved of the match officially, the lion still feared that he might be set to the waves if he put a foot wrong.

It was clear to see the way the lion cowed beneath the gaze of the man. “Gods, stop calling me your lord. I am your good father and your keeper but I am not your lord. You are Olyvar no longer, remember that.”   
  
_If only I had a father as kind as you,_ Jaime thought. _I might have been noble and loyal and better than I was. I might have been worthy. If only I were Olyvar._ “Stop thinking on it so, you’re a Lannister. Lannisters don’t dwell on the opinions of lesser men, remember that. You are here so I might ask a boon of you.”  
  
“Anything,” Jaime had been only a moment short of using his honorific but had thought better of it. “I owe you my life, all I have to give is yours to claim.”  
  
There was a softness in Lord Selwyn’s gaze. His eyes were full of love and loss and longing for something that Jaime couldn’t quite pin down. _He wants my word I won’t hurt her, or my vow I will keep her from harm._ “Look after her for me.”  
  
 Jaime let him talk. Spiels of the things she would tell him and the things she would not, when to stop her and when to let her go, how to love her as perfectly as he could. It was a wonder that Lord Selwyn didn’t tire as he spoke, though he wheezed with every breath and seemed unable to find the air around them.   
  
“These lessons are not for today,” Jaime uttered with a practiced sense of confidence. “You will survive us yet.”   
  
In their bed that night, when she came to him, he held her in his arms and hoped she felt the love he fought to convey. Brienne was a fortified soul and to make an impression, a person ought to cast themselves at the mercy of her strength and speak in truth.

 _Soon, I will be all she has in this world,_ he realised. _Can I keep her happy? Can I keep her safe? Can I do all he has done for her?_


	21. Chapter 21

He went in the night.

Maester Willet gave him milk of the poppy and kept a damp cloth at his brow until his breaths shallowed then stopped. He had served three-and-forty years this house and death loomed over it like no other. First Baby Arianne, then Baby Alysanne too. When little Galladon was born and then Brienne so soon after, he had hoped that was the end of it, then Lady Darcy fell to the pox.

“They will survive it, Willet,” Lord Selwyn had said after he sat at his late wife’s side. “They must.”   
  
After the loss of Galladon, they were distraught once more. Maester Willet would offer up herbal mixes and balms to keep sweet Brienne healthy and yet she would never accept them, would never take heed of the risks she took and the carelessness that had befallen her. Still, she never gave any sign of falling as her siblings had, the Gods watched over her.

It was barely a minute past dawn when Brienne slipped out of her chambers, already fully dressed. Her eyes were drawn quickly to a sombre looking Maester Willet, who had been standing sigil at her door for her to rise. _One last night of easy dreams,_ he told himself. _The Gods can allow her that._  
  
“When?” she mumbled as tears filled her eyes, already pacing wildly towards her father’s chambers. The maester admitted it had been almost three hours and she hurried herself to his bedside. “He’s been alone.”   
  
The Silent Sisters were too far afield to summon for such a thing. There were embalmers on the isle who could be called more easily to attend their lord. One came up from the town with an assistant and a kit and set to work preparing Lord Selwyn for the funeral pyre.

 _If I were Galladon,_ Brienne thought. _This would be next to nothing. I would grieve and I would rule and it would be easy._ She ached with grief for her lord father and wondered if he’d been ready to go. He’d seemed ready and she hoped that there had been no fear in him when he meant. _But, I am Brienne._  
  
At night, she would return to their chambers and curl up in Jaime’s embrace and try to make herself forget yet every night without fail, she would weep into Jaime’s chest softly and wonder if he was tired of her yet. _Men like their women fragile, not broken._ His attempts to keep her close were waning already, she felt. 

“He loved you more than anything,” Jaime mumbled into her hair and the pair watched his pyre sail out across the open sea. The choppy waves had worried her at first, but her father had always been a wonderful sailor and he proved himself once more. “He told me so once, if not a hundred times.”   
  
He reached out for her hand with his. Once, she had taken this hand and woken to find it gone, him gone. In her sleep, she clung to him like he might run away again, and she was terrified of that. _He is all I have left,_ she thought and for the first time, she believed she really had him.

“He trusted you,” she uttered, almost in awe of how her father’s heart took faith so easily. “With my heart, he kept faith that you would be loyal, and you have proved yourself so.”  
  
Men and women stooped and paid their dues to the grieving pair. Jaime was the Evenstar by all lawful rights. Her father’s advisors had told Brienne that technically the right could pass to her if she wanted it. “No,” she had said. “Tarth has always kept by a loyal man, so the women might do as they wished.”  
  
In truth, she knew that the seat was not hers for the taking. She had not been bred for such things, much though her father dismayed it. He had tried to teach her the law and the people and the trade but always, she would hurry off in wont of a different sort of training. _Jaime was raised for this,_ she thought. His father sired a lordling and raised him as such. Lord Tywin had done one thing right it seemed.

“They love you already.” Brienne’s tone was wistful, though tainted with her grief it might have sounded ungrateful. “They will be loyal to you as they were loyal to my father and you will be loyal to them.”   
  
As they retired to eat bread and cheese away from the watch of the common folk, Jaime looked at her and saw the brevity that became her, even in this. She was at peace with it, though her face might tell a sadder story, and he knew she would be alright come a moon’s turn.

“Will I be enough for them? Can I ever compare to him?” asked Jaime as he shrugged off his black surcoat and started at the fastening of his armour.   
  
Unfazed, Brienne glanced over at him with a softness. “You’re enough for me, aren’t you?”   
  
He’d been chasing that look for years. He’d seen glimpses of it – after the bear pit, leaving on her quest, at Riverrun, when he came to Winterfell. All of that had been tarnished in his memory by the tears he’d caused, and he had wondered if he’d ever know the pride of having her trust again. _She knows only the seventh God could steal me from her now.  
  
_ And The Stranger would not come quite yet. First, The Three Eyed Raven saw three children borne of peacetime. A handsome knight and a fair-faced young maiden, and a girl dressed head to toe in mail. _The time will come,_ knew Bran, _but first I ought to promote a man to Lord Commander. My own has been stolen away in wont of love requited and happiness hunted. ._


End file.
